When the Penn State women's basketball team stood in its locker room shouting out basketball related words, coach Coquese Washington could tell it was making progress.
Words like "ball pressure," "stop the ball," and "pass" were coming out of the players' mouths as quickly as possible.
While Washington said the Family Feud style game was a fun activity for the Lady Lions, she did it for a reason.
The third-year head coach is having her young team participate in off-court activities to help develop their basketball IQ's. Washington said before she can decide on a starting lineup, she needs to make sure her players understand the plays and can effectively communicate on the court.
"We understand there are different types of ways to learn," Washington said. "We've all been through that in school. You know your best teachers are the ones who made the subject matter interesting and was creative in ways that impart the information to the students. We try to find ways to make basketball fun because basketball can be a job."
The Lions have four seniors on their roster, but with only three of them able to play this season, Washington knows the underclassmen need to play a bigger role on the team. Part of being able to step into contributing roles means all the players need to be thinking as one.
"She said we all have to be able to speak the language, so there's no confusion," sophomore guard Emily Phillips said. "I think it will be good because all the stuff we're doing off the court will go right on the court."
Phillips said the team participates in off-court intelligence tests so they can become better students of the game. She said the tests, which Washington presents in the form of games, involve so many details that it forces the players to talk through the phrases and plays until there is little or no confusion.
She recalled the team's latest game, where the players were enthusiastically shouting the phrase "stop the ball," only to find out that Washington had another phrase in mind. The coach wanted her team to realize that the key term was "ball pressure," and Washington wouldn't stop the activity until the players worked together to come up with the answer.
While the games encourage the Lady Lions to test their knowledge against one another, the players realize it's also a great opportunity for them to develop on-court chemistry.
"I think anything with team building where we are all competing against each other, but also helping each other out is gonna be essential," junior Julia Trogele said.
While the games are a nice alternative form of competition for the players, don't expect Washington to make it a substitute for the players' physical conditioning.
"I mean, it's not fun running sprints and doing suicides," Washington said. "But you have to do those things in order to be able to compete. But we try to make it fun and do things that are fun."
